Burn Away
by A Raven's Call
Summary: Jo loses people to bullets, knives, bombs, and change; in the end, she knows, everyone just goes away. Her only constant companions are guilt, and pain. But still, it's better to have loved and lost than not loved at all. JAC. Past Mac/Christine. Rated T for character death, some cursing, and mild violence.


Jo Danville goes through men faster than they go through shirts. She goes through women like there's no tomorrow. Jo loses people to bullets, knives, bombs, and change; in the end, she knows, everyone just goes away. Her only constant companions are guilt, and pain.

Everything else in her hands just seems to burn away.

* * *

Jo fumbles for her phone, frantically typing a familiar number into it. She wills him to pick up, to have him give her the reassurance she needs to die at peace in the pouring rain. There is only one thing she is afraid of more than death, and that's dying alone.

_Please pick up. Please. _She silently prays to a God she has stopped believing in. Her free hand presses into her wounded abdomen. The sticky, wet substance coating her fingers mixes with the torrent of rain, and she finds the entire situation terribly ironic.

A man attacking her who she injures before going into the rain? It sounds like her own ascension.

"Jo?" Mac picks up after the first ring, sounding simultaneously worried and relieved.

She nearly cries in relief. "Oh God, Mac. Thank God."

Perhaps he -who is already out of her reach - won't disappear like all the others.

Perhaps he'll stay with her.

Then she hears another indistinct (though distinctively female) voice on the other end, and it's like the world is on fire. Jo hates herself for her delusions of grandeur, love, and happy endings.

She knows once she finishes bleeding out into the ground, she'll have lost everything. It'll start with her heart and end with herself.

* * *

The first person she loses is her father. Her father, though not a bad man sober, was an abusive one when he started to drink. At first, Jo thought it was natural for him to beat her with a hickory switch. All the stories she had read mentioned a father tanning his children's hide when they did something wrong.

Then the beatings got more severe and the smell of alcohol replaced Fabreze. The occasional tanning turned to whippings and beatings that left Jo's head reeling for days, the harsh words became never ending strings of curses. Her mama, seeing the signs, had fled to her aunt's house in order to file for a divorce and custody of Jo for a few days, but not before telling the innocent eight year old to be careful.

"Stay away from your father," she had warned. "He's gone off the deep end."

And he did, at that point, Jo remembers. He had come in a few hours after Jo's mama departed, drunk of his ass, and reeling. Her father tried to do unspeakable things to her, and Jo's first instinct is to run, run, run. He's stronger than her, but she's faster, darting through his legs to the kitchen in an attempt to escape through the back door. Her father nabs her just as she's about to make her escape, dragging her kicking and screaming to the sink for god knows what.

Jo accidentally kills him, instinctively stabbing him through the ribs with a kitchen knife she doesn't know how got into her hand. As the blood drips onto her face, Jo has never felt more at peace. She's not heady with bloodlust or power, but Jo is relieved she no longer has to hide scars or bruises and can invite people over to her house to play.

Jo remembers the look in his eyes right before he died.

"You damn bitch," he hisses before collapsing, his life draining from his angry eyes. "You damn-"

He never was able to finish. Her father died as he lived: cursing someone out and hating the world.

Jo, at eight years old, swears she won't go the same way.

She walks the fifteen miles to her aunt's house in the pouring rain to tell her mama that her father's dead. The rain dripping down her face hides the hot tears, and she pretends that she didn't cry - that she's fine - because weakness is for sissies and wimps, not Jo Danville.

The very next day she attends her first day of her second grade class with a smile on her face.

* * *

"I need help, Mac," Jo mumbles into the phone. "I just got stabbed and shot by our murder suspect."

"Where is he?" His voice over the phone darkens, and Jo knows that he's beyond pissed, though she doesn't know who yet.

"In need of some serious medical attention." Jo turns her attention to the man scrabbling to retain his insides with a small smile. She quips, "You know us Southern gals are. We don't get mad; we get even."

"Where are you?" Mac demands. His words lash out against the sound of falling rain like a dragon whipping its tail, sharp and deadly and so beautiful. The tension is thick, and the buzz in the background of his phone has died down somewhat. Or perhaps she's just becoming dizzy from the blood loss.

Through the fog of her brain, she manages to murmur, "In an alley somewhere between 44th and 45th. Near that sports bar we used to go to for a burger and a beer."

He knows the used to in her sentence is a spite toward him, but Mac doesn't seem too bothered by that right now.

"I'll be right there, Jo." She hears the sounds of the city in the background and knows Mac has dropped everything to just come for her. It stems from a platonic love, of course, but it's the thought that always counts. Jo would much rather have their floundering friendship than nothing. It's always better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all.

"Don't hang up," she whispers. "Please." _I don't want to be alone._

The two of them know each other well enough to hear the unspoken words, and his slight pause is his tacit agreement to always be by her side. Jo can already see his brave smile on his face, hear the calm reassurance in his voice when he finally says the statement she needs to hear. "I never was going to."

Mac only says a few words, but they mean something to her. He speaks, and Jo instantly believes him. It's a vicious never ending story where it always ends with her falling in love with him before it's put on repeat to relive the same thing again and again...

It's like what she told Christine in the hospital. Jo loves him… She can't help it.

* * *

Her sister Leanne comes along when Jo is nine, and Jo loses her mother. Don't get her wrong, Jo loves her sister with every ounce of emotion her heart can muster up - always have, always will - but Leanne's entrance into her life makes her life hard. Leanne has inadvertently smashed the perfectly balanced equilibrium that had existed since her father's timely demise. Though her grandpappy and grandma always makes time for her, Jo's mama is no longer her mama. Truth be told, Jo has started calling her mother, and her mother no longer notices or seems to care.

It wasn't the neglect that hurts the most. It's the fact that Jo turned her mother's life around on that rainy day and her mother can't even take a minute of her day to even say hi.

After Leanne's death, when her mother tries to patch things up, Jo accepts the offer graciously.

Her mother's no longer her mama, but that's all right. The attempt is enough and Jo seizes it without hesitation. She needs a sympathetic female ear from time to time. Jo uses her mother as a tester for lying; if her own mother can't detect Jo telling a falsehood, she doubts the rest of the world ever will.

* * *

The third person she loses is her best friend, Milly. Milly was a nice gal who loved the countryside and farms. She was popular in the middle school, already blossoming into a beautiful woman at age thirteen. For some reason, she didn't mind hanging out with that "creepy Jo D girl" during lunch and recess and welcomed Jo into her large, ever growing circle of friends with a large, genuine smile.

Jo is the one who finds her body, broken and twisted, and her heart breaks. The sparkling brown eyes of Milly's are now empty, and Jo knows from the crime scene that she was raped in the final moments of her life before being beaten to death.

After fighting down the nausea, Jo takes a deep breath. With the same determination she had when she slipped that knife into her father, she forces herself to look at the crime scene -_ really look _- and see things that other normal people don't.

She tells her mama about the body. While her sobbing mama is busy calling the police, Jo walks away and starts looking.

Jo finds Milly's murderer two days later, drags him to the police stations, and throws him at the nearest detective, eyes bright and brain whirring.

"This man," she states precisely, "killed Milly Young two days ago. You will find traces of her DNA in a used condom in his apartment and his hands will match the strangulation marks on Milly."

Then she leaves the police station in a whirl of anger and throws up in the nearest garbage can. Her grandma is waiting for her on the steps, and once Jo is done, her grandma takes her home for some hot chocolate, sympathetic words, and reassurance. The next day, her grandpappy teaches her how to shoot – just in case.

The police don't mention her involvement in the case, but that's fine. Jo decides she doesn't need the attention- at least not yet.

Later, she majors in psychology once she goes into college, if only to understand why a man would pick out an innocent girl like that. Jo naively believed she would one day find the answers to the human brain if she just searched hard enough.

She never does.

* * *

Jo learned early on that there is no God, but humans still like to play at being Him. She hears about those who pray for guidance and deliverance, but she sees none of those pleas answered. It's better to have faith in herself.

But she doesn't mind having faith in Mac, and she does have good reason to.

He arrives, frantic and shaking in a tuxedo, when the EMTs do, riding with her to the hospital and determined that she's going to live. She feels guilty about pulling him away from whatever function he was attending, but Mac dismisses it with a wave of his hand.

"I didn't want to be there anyway," Mac admits. "I'd much rather be here with you."

_Like you've been with me these past few months?_ she thinks, her heart breaking. Mac has distanced himself from her ever since his shooting, pushing her back toward that dark corner she thought she had left behind in the rain at age eight. Suddenly, he's back here like nothing has happened, like he hasn't dated Christine, like he hasn't inadvertently smashed Jo Danville's already fragile hearts into bits.

"You're going to be fine," he says, his hand slipping into her own. Jo barely feels him, barely even hears him. If he had done this months ago, she would have been ecstatic at her personal prince charming finally coming for his princess. Now she just feels empty. "You're going to be fine."

She grins, half-delirious and dazed, with a face that feels like it's about to fall off and a deadweight body that won't listen to her anymore. "I know."

They both know she's lying.

* * *

The fourth person she loses is her grandma. Her grandma is like just like the mockingbird Harper Lee always went on about: a person didn't do one thing but make music for others to enjoy. If her father was the devil in Jo's life, her grandma was the saint.

When her grandma is lowered into the ground, Jo realizes that there will be no more warm cookies and milk or lullabies or singing lessons or even the rush of kind words that flowed from her grandma the moment Jo stepped onto the porch after a particularly rough day at school.

She's gone. And that's that.

It was a sin to take her, Jo decides wisely at the age of thirteen. A sin.

Her mama explains that sometimes saints get shot and robbers get rich, but Jo Danville knows better. It's the people who remain behind that go on to complete the dream and hand out justice. Her mama tells her to look to God, an idea that is met with polite indifference on good days and roaring disgust on others.

Jo Danville had been an on the fence believer before the incident; now she completely stops believing in a God. If there really is a God, then he is a sadistic scientist who enjoys tormenting his human lab rats because no God would ever let an innocent girl, on the cusp of womanhood, to be violated and killed in such a way. No God would have a kind old lady just drop down dead suddenly.

After the funeral, Jo Danville never steps into another church again without mentally giving the bird to God.

She has a feeling he's amused by her antics and mentally gives her the bird back.

Jo's almost relieved. His amusement is the only thing keeping her alive.

* * *

Persons five through nine (and probably a whole lot more) are lost to a random shooter who attacks her high school with a machine gun, a couple of Molotov cocktails, a few handguns, and a bomb. She's in the cafeteria when she hears the screams and the explosions, and Jo rushes over to see some of her classmates becoming part of a slaughterhouse.

Some days, she does want them dead, or at least gone, but Jo herself never wanted them to die like this.

"I want to be glorious!" the boy declares, going over to aim a handgun at another unsuspecting girl's head. "Am I not glorious? Do you all see me? Am I not what you always wanted to be?"

Jo, breath caught in her throat, doesn't know what else to do but calmly take the discarded handgun of a security guard, load it, and fire at the unsuspecting assailant's head.

The boy said he wanted to be glorious.

She fires.

Now he's nothing but dead, another nameless face for school shootings and infamy.

During the memorial ceremony, Jo is not commemorated for her actions because she was smart enough to make it look like the boy committed suicide and swore the other girl and surrounding people to secrecy (all whom are too frightened to do anything but agree). As she walks by the faces of those who died, their eyes accusingly stare at her, reminding her of all the people she couldn't save.

She swears that she will try to save everyone until her grandpappy boxes her on her ears and - in the vein of a true soldier - tells her that her crazy talk will one day get her killed.

* * *

Her grandpappy is the next to go from old age. He didn't regret the way he died from smoke inhalation after rescuing a young mother and her daughter from a collapsing, burning building. An old man died so a young family could live, a fair exchange by all accounts, and her grandpappy took it unfalteringly without any regrets. Jo could not fault him for it at the funeral and knows his spirit is finally with his beloved and at peace.

His death allows her to accept the idea of dying, but, as she places a rose on his grave, Jo Danville agrees that she isn't ready to break bread with Death just yet.

At his tombstone, she thanks her grandpappy for all those shooting lessons he gave her. If he hadn't taught her how to shoot, that innocent girl and more students would have died. If he hadn't been there to show her the way, she would never have returned home shaken but still in one piece. He was a sniper (and a damn good one at that), and since his children had no sons, he taught everything he knew to Jo and made her into a superb homeschooled sniper – able to hunt and kill with deadly precision.

Whenever she is angry at the other students at school, Jo shoots trees to bits. It's better to kill trees than people, she decides, though making the occasional headshot on wild life when it's hunting season comes a close second.

"Those who are allowed to shoot a gun," her grandpappy reminded her, "should be prepared to be shot at."

"I know, grandpappy," she had laughed.

She didn't. Not yet. It took her years to finally know what her grandpappy meant, and by the time she had acquired the knowledge to comprehend his words, Jo wishes she hadn't.

* * *

Her mind is racing as Mac's hand clenches hers even more tightly and his words become nothing but garbled jargon. It almost sounds like math, and Jo doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

All she can hear is something about how he's ordering her to stay awake and stay alive.

She fights back a smile, forcing her trembling hand to brush his face.

"I'm... going...to be fine..." she breathes. "I don't know why...you're so...worried."

Mac says something indistinct, but it doesn't matter. She has lost too much blood to really care.

* * *

She's lost so many people and so much blood at this point that she begins to lose count. Jo only remembers the people she couldn't save. She tries to keep the people who have found a place in her heart nice and close, and that's not enough.

Then again, she remembers, nothing can ever be _enough._

* * *

By the time she is sixteen, Jo Danville is ready to start shooting actual people. So she does the most logical thing and decides to dedicate her life to something along the lines of law enforcement.

It works. In the local precinct, she becomes fascinated with detective work, hanging out at the station and making friends with the detectives and officers there. They call her 'Lil Jo D' and make her feel like she belongs with smiles, hair tousling, and brotherly love. She almost remembers the innocence of youth, the joy of sunshine, and the romanticism in falling rain.

It's here, where criminals are kept and paperwork is to be filled out, that she can escape the everyday worries of school. She begins to learn the tools of the trade, constantly analyzing and interpreting people and evidence until she surpasses some of the veterans of the business.

As a sniper, Jo has good eyes. As a detective, her gaze is impeccable.

People who already hate her at school begin to loathe her with every fiber in their body as she unravels their secrets and webs of lies. Jo knows it's petty, but revenge is sure sweet. She uses her knowledge to become popular come high school, becoming captain of the cheer squad and valedictorian with ease. She's now the most popular, brightest girl in school with the football QB as her boyfriend and the entire school at her fingertips. Jo Danville who killed her father is the thing of the past and has no place in her future.

In her quest for retribution, though, she loses some part of her, something important and yet insubstantial, something forever lost and yet still found, a paradox of herself in a conundrum wrapped up with a riddle.

She doesn't know what she lost back in those days.

If she dies today, she never will.

* * *

Once she loved Russ; now she just resents him. She didn't lose Russ literally, but Jo lost the Russ she had fallen in love with. The guy who knew how to show a girl a good time and treat her like a princess. The Prince Charming who'd always open the doors for her, pull out her chair, and listen to her bitch without so much as a constructive criticism.

After that ring slipped on, everything seemed to change.

Suddenly, Jo Danville wasn't Jo Danville anymore. According to Russ, she was now "his" and nothing else.

She had tried so damn hard to keep that marriage together. The two of them had gone to counseling, talked it over, and tried every trick in the book, but in the end, Jo broke the bad news to him, took Tyler, and left.

She had to deal with one abusive man in her life; Jo doesn't need another.

Though Russ may have his regrets now, Jo has already moved on. Russ had his chance to prove he loved her, and he screwed it. If there's anything life has taught her, it's that there aren't always second chances.

She still thinks that the day she broke it off was the second best day of her life.

Meeting Mac Taylor is still the best.

* * *

The loss of her sister hits her the hardest. When she hears the news, the cold, hard part of her heart breaks. Crying in her driveway, Jo isn't a tough F.B.I. agent but a grieving older sister.

Leanne, blameless, sweet Leanne, was a beautiful child Jo never resented. Back in Alabama, Jo played the part of the big sister well, grooming Leanne into the popular, bright child she will become. Leanne reminded Jo of Milly, in a way, in the sense that she always had time for her older sister.

"Why weren't you popular in middle school, Jo?" Leanne asked one day.

Jo shrugged, slouching on the couch. "I could be," she admitted, "but I didn't really want to play the game."

"Why not?"

Jo flashed her a toothy grin. "Because being in the center of things is kind of boring. It's better for me to be swept off to the side until the time is right to strike. You though," Jo continued on, "you're gonna be a star when you grow up!"

Leanne wiggled next to her sister, snuggling up and demanding a hug which Jo gave. "When I'm a star," Leanne declared, "you're going to be a star with me."

Jo laughed, hugging Leanne even more tightly. "I know you will, sweetie."

Leanne was on the path of becoming an actual star when she died in that drunk driving accident. God must have been smiling on the dead bastard who caused it because if the crash hadn't killed him, Jo would have finished the job.

Jo is upset at the fact she never got to say good bye.

She's even more upset that they took Leanne off life support because some small part of Jo still thought that Leanne still had a fighting chance.

Jo resolves to never give up - to keep fighting until she will breathe no more.

* * *

Mac is the kindest, most caring person Jo has ever met, though he's not without his short comings. He's the calm, collected individual needed in the lab to balance out Jo's eccentricity and messiness. The two of them have a beautiful team dynamic that makes them the go-to people to solve any crime.

That spark, that beautiful spark of friendship and something more, is barely surviving now, or at least Jo thinks it is. Ever since Mac met Christine, he has kept his distance. They no longer go on beer and burger dates that aren't dates or walk with zero space between them. It's awkward, and Jo misses the closeness that once existed.

But he came to get her still, even though he was doing hell knows what with Christine.

She doesn't know if she has lost him yet.

Jo still likes to think she has a chance.

* * *

For a while, Jo can accept the emptiness of her hands, appreciate the music of empty hands and houses, but in the end, she is only human. She wants to be loved, in one way or another.

And she is, though in a way she hadn't expected all those years ago back in Alabama.

In her delirium she sees the rest of her team, Lindsay (who is helpful to a fault), Adam (the awkward yet loveable computer nerd), Sheldon (who is getting married - bless him), Danny (a softie at heart), Sid (quirky and useful as his breakaway glasses), Don (who is always ready with a wisecrack and a quip), and Mac, dear Mac, who has always been on her side.

If she could have told her innocent, abused self years ago that she would be tenderly loved by friends like this, Jo would have mocked herself and called her crazy. The same woman who loved the C.S.I. team like a second family is the same woman who never was asked out to the eighth grade prom, never had a real, genuine date (with someone she actually liked) until college, and hid behind a mask of cold indifference until high school came around.

It was a good life, she decides, a good life she lived with Ellie and Tyler and the rest of the team. If she wanted to, she could slip away into oblivion right now. Jo could die without any regrets.

But she doesn't.

God would find it amusing if she died on an operating table, if she died because she wasn't strong enough to see life through.

Jo Danville has made it her personal mission to piss Him off. It would be a shame to please Him now.

Jo decides to live.

So she does.

* * *

Her eyes open up, and the first sensation she feels is an unbearable pain shooting through her system in her abdomen. The next is something firmly grasping her hand to the point where she's beginning to lose control of her fingers. Taking a few calming breaths, Jo relaxes when the stings of discomfort in her left hand are coming from a very familiar hand clenched tightly around her fingers.

"Mac," she whispers, weakly brushing her other hand down his face. "Mac."

He jolts awake. "Jo." Mac's grip around her hand loosens a bit. "We almost lost you, you know," he remarks casually, settling back into their easy banter. She effortlessly follows suit.

"Oh, you know me." Jo grins, winking. "I was never any good at reading maps."

"Next time, I'll personally see to it that you get a GPS so you can get back here as soon as you can."

There's a pause, and Jo tries to make bygones be bygones and atone for the worry and trouble she put him through.

"I'm sorry I interrupted your dinner-" she begins but he cuts her off.

"Don't be. It was just some stupid party. You are more important than any party," he states with absolute conviction. "Your call saved me from avoiding some woman who wouldn't keep her paws off me." The awkwardly disgusted look on his face is adorable, and Jo throws her head back and laughs.

"Mac Taylor can handle dead bodies and murderers, but he can't handle a woman at a bar?" Jo jokes good naturedly.

Mac's face flushes a nice scarlet shade. "In my defense this was a high end function and the woman was related to the Chief. I had to make a good impression."

"That's funny. I actually thought it was Christine on the other end of the phone," Jo discloses, embarrassed.

"Oh. Christine." Mac's thumb rolls over his hand nervously. "We broke up ages ago, Jo. She moved upstate to take care of her parents, and we both agreed that a long distance relationship wasn't going to work."

"I'm sorry, Mac. I-"

"You should really stop apologizing," he interrupts. "This entire situation really isn't your fault." He pauses, letting out a small, nervous chuckle before turning his unrelenting blue gaze on her, eyes serious. "I almost thought I was going to lose you."

"You'll never lose me," Jo laughs. "You're stuck with me forever."

"I was afraid something happened to you when, you know, called me. You always send me a text or something before the weekend every single week, if only to check up on me, see if I have any plans…" He cut off, voice hoarse with worry and regret. "Tonight you didn't. If you didn't call me when you did, Jo, I would have called you myself."

She hears the unspoken apology in his voice. He continues on, confessing, "When you told me you were stabbed and shot, I was so angry at myself for not calling, for ignoring you these past few months. For everything, really. I knew, deep down, that I was the one that had pushed you away ever since the shooting. And I knew that you knew. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." She wraps her arms around him, leaning her chin into the crook of her neck. Jo revels in his touch, his warmth, and wishes to heaven on high this moment could last forever.

"Do you think we can start on a clean slate?" Mac whispers.

"That's gonna be hard, dontcha think?" Jo says, "I'm the kind of girl who'd take you as you are - scars, mistakes, and all. It adds character to the stone and makes it sparkle even more brightly."

"You're right about the stone thing," he chuckles. "The scars do add character, but Jo, out of all the people I've met, you still sparkle the brightest." Again that nervous pause. "I couldn't do this without you."

Jo gives him a playful glare. "You know that's not true."

"I suppose if I tried hard enough I could, but I don't want to." He swallowed slightly, his hand trailing down to her lower back. "Does that mean anything to you?"

Her eyes widen then soften somewhat. "It means the world," she whispers.

When she feels Mac's lips pressed against hers, she knows Mac is the one thing in her hands that won't burn away.

* * *

A/N:

Well I hope you guys enjoyed this fanfic. Sorry if it's a bit OOC. I'd like to think of Jo Danville as someone who knows people and empathizes with them because she knows her pain. The look on her face when Jay Carver showed her his back was someone who knew the suffering a child goes through when she's abused. I've also noticed that in Season 7, she always wears a shirt or jacket that covers her back. I'm sorry if the school shooting was a bit of a stretch, but I thought it would be interesting development in her character. I'm still new to the fandom (and haven't even watched a complete season), so trying to do a character sketch like this is difficult.

Funny story: I watched one episode of season 9 before I became a fan of C.S.I. N.Y. and I thought that Mac and Jo were a couple/ would make a really good couple. Now that I'm actually watching the show, I still think they'd make an amazing one. I really hope that they have a Season 10 to save my sinking ship.

Another funny story:(without even watching the show and being a fan) I was really irritated by Christine's appearance in the second episode I watched. Now I'm pissed because her presence sinks my ship.

Please leave a review! Constructive criticism is always welcomed. Thanks for reading!


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